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The History and Future of the Permafrost Tunnel Near Fox, Alaska

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The History and Future of the Permafrost Tunnel Near Fox, Alaska The History and Future of the Permafrost Tunnel near Fox, Alaska Margaret Cysewski, Kevin Bjella & Matthew Sturm U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA ABSTRACT The Fox Permafrost Tunnel, now almost 50 years old, will be expanded in the next few years to stimulate research in key permafrost areas. More than 70 technical papers have been written about the tunnel, including topics on mining and geotechnical engineering, surface geophysics, geocryology, geology, biology, paleontology, paleoclimatology, and Mars permafrost studies. The expanded tunnel will more than double the current tunnel’s length, and is designed to incorporate research needs. Laboratories, offices, cold rooms, and a learning center will also be built on site. Combined, these will form the Alaska Permafrost Research Center (APRC). RÉSUMÉ La Fox Permafrost Tunnel, maintenant presque 50 ans, sera élargi dans les prochaines années pour stimuler la recherche dans des domaines clés du pergélisol. Plus de 70 documents techniques ont été écrits sur le tunnel, y compris des sujets sur l’exploitation minière et géotechnique, géophysique de surface, géocryologie, la géologie, la biologie, la paléontologie, paléoclimatologie, et des etudes du pergélisol Mars. Le tunnel élargi va plus que doubler la longueur du tunnel en cours, et vise à intégrer les besoins de recherche. Laboratoires, bureaux, chambres froides, et un centre d'apprentissage seront également construits sur le site. Ensemble, ces feront l'Alaska Permafrost Research Center (APRC). 1 INTRODUCTION The Permafrost Tunnel has two sections called the adit and the winze, seen below in Figure 2. The adit is the The Permafrost Tunnel is located 17 kilometers from 110-meter horizontal section that passes through frozen Fairbanks, shown in Figure 1. Currently, it is jointly silt. The winze is the 45-meter inclined section that splits operated by the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and off from the adit and passes down through a gravel layer Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) and the Institute of and reaches bedrock (Sellmann 1972). Northern Engineering (INE) of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). The original tunnel was constructed to research excavation methods in permafrost, not as a natural laboratory for permafrost and paleoclimatology research. Nor was the tunnel built for education and outreach on permafrost-related issues in a changing world. The motivation behind expanding the tunnel is to stimulate permafrost research related to climate change, and to address long standing issues related to building on permafrost and to improve the outreach and education experience of people visiting the tunnel. Figure 2. Profile of Permafrost Tunnel (adapted from U.S. Army 1981). 2 ORIGINAL EXCAVATION The Permafrost Tunnel’s adit was excavated during the winters from 1963 to 1966 by U.S. Army CRREL. The winze was later excavated during the winter of 1968-1969 by the U.S. Bureau of Mines (Sellmann 1972). 2.1 Adit Excavation The adit was excavated to research underground excavations for possible military installation use. A photograph of the adit is seen in Figure 3. After the Figure 1. Map of Permafrost Tunnel excavation, the plan was for the underground tunnel to be assessed for its use as a military shelter or for storage. It 1222 was known at the time that permafrost could absorb shocks from explosions without severe shattering (Swinzow 1970). Essentially, the tunnel was excavated out of Cold War fears. Figure 5. Photo of Permafrost Tunnel’s Winze. The winze was excavated using five different drill and blast techniques through the silt layer and into the gravel layer and bedrock. Within the gravel layer, additional Figure 3. Photo of Permafrost Tunnel’s Adit. unconventional techniques were tried, including thermal relaxation, steam thawing, and hydraulic mining (Chester The tunnel entrance was placed into a near vertical, and Frank 1969). man-made slope. The slope was created in 1942 (Holmes 1982) by stripping the overburden silt for the gold dredging of gravels (Sellmann 1967). 3 ENGINEERING RESEARCH The adit was excavated with the Alkirk Continuous Cycle Miner equipped with two 2.1-meter diameter cutting Since its construction, the tunnel has been used for arms, seen in Figure 4. The excavation process started additional types of research with mining and geotechnical with two pilot holes being drilled into the permafrost, engineering being the main research foci through the where anchoring packers would be inserted. The packers 1980s. would grip the sides of the pilot holes’ walls and the Alkirk Over this 30-year period, hundreds of samples have would pull itself into the cutting face (Swinzow 1970). been taken from the tunnel and tested for geotechnical research. A few of the experiments include compressive and tensile strength testing and creep testing (Zhu and Carbee 1987a; 1987b). In addition, test strip footings were installed within the tunnel to study creep settlement (Sayles 1985). More recently, intact samples from the tunnel were tested for the long-term strength in relation to the samples’ cryostructure features (Bray 2008). A number of geophysical methods have been tested using the tunnel site as well. These tests have generally fallen into two categories: tests with the placement of underground sensors and tests related to the detection of subsurface permafrost. The former includes cross- borehole radiowave pulse transmissions (Arcone and Figure 4. Diagram of Alkirk Miner (from Swinzow 1970). Delaney 1989) and downhole ground penetrating radar (Hunter et al. 2003). Geophysics experimentation is one 2.2 Winze Excavation of the driving factors for the tunnel expansion. Sublimation of the ice within the tunnel walls have The winze was excavated by the U.S. Bureau of Mines to been a constant problem. It makes cryostructures hard to test various excavation methods in hopes of increasing see and forces researchers to spend hours cleaning just a the gold mining rate in the area (Chester and Frank 1969). small section of wall for studying. The fine loose silt falls A photo of the winze is seen in Figure 5. At the lower end to the floor and creates a thick carpet of dust that easily of the winze, a 2.4-meter tall, 9- by 15-meter room was gets kicked up when people are working in the tunnel. The excavated in the gravel layer just above bedrock. This desiccated silt layer that remains intact on the walls have room was studied for roof stability of the frozen gravels been studied and compared to similar desiccated soils on (Pettibone 1973). the slopes on Mars (Johnson and Lorenz 2000). 1223 3.1 Tunnel Stability switched from engineering-related studies to studies focused on climate change and paleoclimatology. During the summer after the excavation of the adit, the In brief, the geologic stratigraphy of the tunnel tunnel operators discovered that the rear of the adit would includes a bedrock layer of weathered schist at deform if kept at its natural permafrost temperature of approximately 22 meters below the ground surface. approximately -1°C. Refrigerant coils were installed above Overlaying the bedrock is approximately 5 meters of the tunnel’s entrance for use during the summer and a gravels (Hamilton et al. 1988), more specifically the gold- vent shaft was used to pull cold air through during the bearing Fox Gravels (Long and Péwé 1996). Above the winter (U.S. Army 1967). Eventually, a mechanical chilling gravels is approximately 17 meters of silts (Hamilton et al. unit was installed just within the tunnel’s entrance to cool 1988) that date back to approximately 43,000 BP (Long the tunnel even further. A mechanical chilling unit is still in and Péwé 1996). The silt is part of two different units, the use and currently chills the tunnel to approximately -4°C upper part being the Ready Bullion Formation which dates during the summer. During winter months, outside winter from 3,500 to 10,000 BP. The lower layer is part of the air would be pulled to the back of the adit by vent shafts. Goldstream Formation, which dates from 10,000 BP to These vent shafts would fill with water during the summer older than 30,000 BP (Péwé 1975). and freeze, making them inoperable. In total, three vent The frozen silts are ice-rich syngenetic permafrost that shafts were constructed and all three were eventually is similar to other unglaciated parts of Interior Alaska, plugged with ice. Currently, the tunnel is cooled during the Yukon, and Siberia. The cryostructures seen within the winter by blowing cold outside air through a flexible duct tunnel include layered, lenticular-layered, micro-lenticular to the rear of the adit. In 1993, an unfortunate combination (Shur et al. 2004), and reticulate chaotic (Bray et al. of events caused the rear of the adit to slowly deform due 2006). The massive ice features include dozens of ice to creep and the dislodgement of large pieces. That spring wedges at different depths and thermokarst-cave ice the air chilling unit broke and the tunnel flooded from (Shur et al. 2004). spring runoff, the combination raised the temperature in Within the syngenetic permafrost deposits in the the rear of the tunnel to near 0°C. Currently, the last 20 tunnel, there are numerous organic remains, perfect for meters of the adit are no longer accessible due to large the study of paleoclimatology. Thermokarst-cave ice and slabs of fallen silt (Bjella et al. 2008). With upgraded other past erosion features can be seen in the tunnel’s cooling, the rear adit is expected to be reopened during walls. In one section of the winze, there are seven distinct the expansion of the tunnel. peat layers with corresponding ice layers below, evidence The stability of the underground room within the frozen of seven different past active layers (Kanevskiy et al.
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